Event Details

Alchemix is a curated, open forum discussion between Entrepreneurs, Innovators, Investors, creative minds and engaged citizens. Alchemix takes a deep, insightful look at high-impact social models from an innovation lens. Previous speakers include social entrepreneurs, founders and thought leaders from organizations like Pratham Books, Ashoka, Floh, mDhil,YourStory.in and many more.

Theme: Understanding the opportunity and need for innovation in the context of urban-poor consumers.

In the foreword for the Mumbai Human Development Report in 2009, Kumari Selja, the Minister for Housing and Poverty alleviation states: “…Mumbai contributes 33% of income tax collection, 60% of India’s customs duty collection, 20% of India’s central excise collection and 40% of India’s foreign trade…..yet the city’s slums get less than 90 litres per capita daily. Studies have indicated that in certain slums of Mumbai there is an average of 81 people to each toilet seat available. And only 31% of Mumbai’s slum dwellers are likely to complete 10 years of schooling..”

In this session of Alchemix we will look at the need and opportunity for breakthrough innovation designed for, and implemented with, the urban poor. The discussion will be kick started through the insights and perspectives of social enterprise models working in this space in Mumbai:

Swasth India is a social business working towards improving the health of low-income segments in urban and rural India, with an aim to focus on reducing the cost of healthcare access. They have set up health centres in low-income areas in Mumbai that offer low-cost or discounted diagnostics, consultation and treatment.

WaterWalla is a social enterprise that sources and introduces clean water technologies that improve the health of residents in urban slums. WaterWalla identifies and recruits influential slum residents to be local entrepreneurs and provides them with mentoring, education, start-up funding, and necessary tools to start their own shops in the hearts of their own slums.

Sharing of Insights will be followed by an open discussion around the following points:

What are the most critical need areas for social and development impact in this context?

What does it take to succeed with a market-based model in urban slums?

What are the funding challenges for social enterprises in this context?

Seating is limited to the first 40 people who register.

So please do register at the earliest or email Mansi Reddy at mansi@innovationalchemy.com for more details. Learn more about previous Alchemix Sessions. Follow us on Twitter @innovalchemy and like us on Facebook for more information and updates. We will be live tweeting the session, please follow and use the hashtag #Alchemix for live updates during and prior to the session.

Thursday, April 26, 2012 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM (IST)

Organizer

Innovation Alchemy in collaboration with Mahindra Spark the Rise

Innovation Alchemy, is an Innovation Consulting and Advisory Services firm based in Bangalore, India, applying innovation thinking to problems of scalable social impact, business growth and sustainable profitability. We engage across civil society organizations, foundations, small businesses and government agencies involved in scaling high-impact ideas and help facilitate accelerated growth of the projects & models. Our work involves three core areas of strength: Consulting & Research Insights; Incubation & Acceleration; and Community Curation. Most notably, Innovation Alchemy is the lead partner for the World Bank’s Development Marketplace (2011-2013) as well as knowledge partner for Marico Innovation Foundation’s Social Enterprise Acceleration Program where we leverage our Alchemize™ methodology for scale.